Gong and Shou Meaning: What Danmei's Two Labels Tell You

Gong and shou meaning, in one line: in a danmei couple, the gong (攻) is the top and the shou (受) is the bottom. The words literally mean "attack" and "receive," and they're the same two characters Japanese BL fans read as seme and uke.

That's the dictionary part. The more useful part is what the labels do on the page. On JJWXC, where Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, priest and Mu Su Li all published, they mostly tell you whose eyes the story looks through, and that's nearly always the shou's. They tell you very little about who's stronger.

Image: Seven Seas Entertainment volume one covers for Heaven Official's Blessing, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation and The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System

Gong and Shou Meaning, Word by Word

Gōng (攻) means to attack; shòu (受) means to receive. The pair came over from Japanese BL, where the same characters are read seme and uke. Wikipedia's Boys' Love article traces them to martial arts terms that later became Japanese gay slang for the insertive and receptive partner. Chinese fans kept the characters and simply read them in Chinese.

So yes, at bottom (sorry) it's about sex. The r/DanmeiNovels glossary puts it as flatly as anyone: "Gong (top, seme, 1 = visual euphemism)" and "Shou (bottom, uke, 0 = visual euphemism)." That's why you'll sometimes see 1 and 0 standing in for the two roles.

Order matters too. The Chinese fan wiki Moegirl explains that in a pairing written "A×B," the name before the × is the gong and the name after it is the shou. Swap the names and you have a different ship, the "reverse CP," and Moegirl notes those are sometimes exactly what fans fight about.

New to the genre itself? Start with what danmei is, where it's published and how to read it legally in English.

What Is Danmei? A Beginner's Guide →

Where You'll See Gong and Shou on JJWXC

You don't have to guess who's who on JJWXC: the site files it. Every novel page we opened has a 作品视角 line, "work perspective," and the search page filters by it. The choices for that line are male lead, female lead, 主攻 (zhu gong), 主受 (zhu shou), 互攻 (hugong), unclear, other, dual POV and multi-POV.

Screenshot: JJWXC novel search, orientation and perspective filters, October 20, 2026

Zhu shou means the shou is the protagonist or the main point of view; zhu gong is the reverse. "Zhu Gong 主攻 means the main POV is mainly gong. The opposite would be Zhu Shou 主受," as one r/DanmeiNovels regular put it. Hugong means the couple switches.

The best single page for seeing all of this at once is Heaven Official's Blessing (天官赐福). We opened it on October 20, 2026:

• The perspective line says 主受.
• The blurb pitches the couple in the classic formula, gong first and shou second: a censored, rude "little demon gong" × an "otherworldly scrap-collecting shou."
• The author's notes promise "主受1V1HE": shou-led, one-on-one, happy ending. They also give a signpost: the gong "enters in chapter 7 and shows his face in chapter 13."
• The protagonist cards spell it out: 谢怜（受）, Xie Lian (shou), and 花城（攻）, Hua Cheng (gong), with a one-way arrow between them.
• The extra tags start with 花怜, the ship name. Hua comes first because Hua Cheng is the gong.

Screenshot: JJWXC novel page for 天官赐福 (Heaven Official's Blessing), October 20, 2026

Read by the same rule, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation's page tags its couple 忘羡 (Wangxian), which puts Lan Wangji in the gong slot. Back on Heaven Official's Blessing, the couple that page labels so plainly is the one in the donghua trailer below.

Trailer: Crunchyroll's official YouTube channel, Heaven Official's Blessing Season 2

Nearly Everything Is Shou-Led

To see how lopsided that perspective line is, we pulled the JJWXC pages for the twenty-six danmei novels our site has already sourced for other guides. Here's the count:

Treat that as a sample, not a census: it's the list we happened to need, so it leans toward big names. Still, the pattern is plain. Moegirl says that most danmei is shou-led, perhaps because of how its female-oriented readership identifies with the characters, and that some readers seek out gong-led books because they can't stand a heavily feminized lead. A 2023 r/DanmeiNovels post started from the same observation: "Most danmei novels I've read are told from the shou's point of view, and the gong is always the one loving more." Its author named the trope 攻宠受, the gong spoiling the shou.

Screenshot: JJWXC novel page for 撒野 (Run Wild), October 20, 2026

The exceptions are worth a look. Run Wild's page says 互攻 and puts a two-way arrow between its leads where Heaven Official's Blessing has a one-way one. Case File Compendium's page just says "unclear."

What the Gong and Shou Meaning Doesn't Tell You

The Japanese template comes with a look. Wikipedia describes the typical seme as "older and taller," with a stronger chin and a more macho manner, and the uke as softer and often physically weaker. It also notes that not every work follows that pattern. Plenty of JJWXC tags push against it. Qiang Jin Jiu, Grandmaster, Guardian, Faraway Wanderers and Global Examination all carry 强强, literally "strong-strong": two capable leads. Stars of Chaos and Case File Compendium are tagged 年下, which Moegirl says usually marks the gong as the younger partner.

Zhu shou is also a lean, not a camera lock. We read chapter 1 of two shou-led novels in Chinese on JJWXC on October 20, 2026. Kaleidoscope of Death never leaves Lin Qiushi's head, from the black iron door to the ghost at his bedside. Global Examination does something else. For most of its first chapter it watches You Huo from across a cabin, first asleep on a broken sofa, then testing the window with his bare hand, and it lets us into his thoughts only in the last lines, when he sizes up the room and decides the exam is a death sentence. (The infinite flow guide has more on both books.)

And the labels can change hands. Fans call a role swap 反攻 if it happens once and 互攻 if it's a pattern: "'Mutual attack'/Switch CP is 互攻, switching once is 反攻," as one r/DanmeiNovels commenter explained.

Want to test the labels on finished books? These danmei novels are complete in English.

Best Danmei Novels for Binge Reading →

Fan Slang Built on Gong and Shou

Once you know the pair, a lot of fan shorthand opens up:

• 攻控 / 受控 (gong-con, shou-con). A reader who sides with the gong or the shou. One r/DanmeiNovels commenter says the "con" is short for "complex," borrowed from Japanese fandom; an r/boyslove commenter thinks it comes from 控制, "to control." Either way, a "gong lovers do not interact" warning usually means the author is about to put the gong through it.
• Wife-chasing crematorium. The glossary's definition is "a genre of red-flag gongs who mistreat the shou in someway"; the shou leaves, and the gong has to win him back.
• 主CP only. On both the Heaven Official's Blessing and Grandmaster pages, the extra tags say the main couple is the only couple.

Our Take

Learn the two words, then use them the way JJWXC does: as a map, not a personality test. For a reader, that's the working gong and shou meaning. Before you start a danmei novel, the perspective line tells you whose head you'll be in, and "shou-led" is the default. A book filed 互攻 or "unclear" is telling you something too. If a pairing order looks wrong to you, check the author's page before you argue about it.

For where to start, our guide to danmei novels licensed in English covers the big ones, Is Qiang Jin Jiu Finished? covers where that 强强 couple's story stands in English, and the Case File Compendium guide covers the big one whose page won't say who's who.

References

1. JJWXC: 天官赐福 (Heaven Official's Blessing)
2. JJWXC: 撒野 (Run Wild)
3. JJWXC: 魔道祖师 (Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation)
4. JJWXC novel search (perspective filter)
5. Wikipedia: Boys' love, Seme and uke
6. Moegirl (萌娘百科): 攻受
7. r/DanmeiNovels glossary
8. r/DanmeiNovels: Clarification on chinese terms